Fit enough for Ironman but not for the MPD

In fact, the 54-year-old athlete can do all of these one right after the other - several times a year. He completed six Ironman triathlons last year, has done three so far this year and hopes to compete in yet another one in Klagenfurt, Austria, on July 4.

Orlowski can also play a round of golf, as he did recently at a fund-raiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin.

But this is something the guy won't do:

He won't work for the Milwaukee Police Department.

That's because the former homicide detective has been declared "permanently and totally incapacitated for duty."

As an injured ex-cop, Orlowski has been paid nearly $500,000 in tax-free pension checks by the city since 1999. He is currently receiving $53,063 a year from the city Employees' Retirement System, plus full health benefits.

One member of the city Pension Board, which administers payments to disabled cops and firefighters, said it is unbelievable that someone able to perform so often in such grueling races is considered too seriously injured to work for the city.

In a 20-minute interview at his Wauwatosa apartment last week, a tanned and fit Orlowski emphasized that he is doing nothing wrong. The rules allow him to train as much as he wants for Ironman events while drawing a disability check from the city.

"Let's clear the air," he said. "I'm doing something with my life, and I have a legitimate injury."

After a series of on-the-job mishaps - he said he was hit by a car and pushed off a porch, among other things - Orlowski had to have his left shoulder replaced in 1998, something recommended by three separate doctors. Even after surgery, the pain persisted to the point that he could no longer do street duty.

That left him with a choice.

He could accept a desk job or opt for so-called duty disability retirement. That means he would be paid 75% of his regular salary for the rest of his life because of the injury. In exchange, he would have to undergo an annual medical exam until age 57.

To Orlowski, the decision was an easy one.

"It's not a position I wanted to work," he said of the desk job. "If you get put on desk duty as a police officer, you push paper for them. You're like any other clerk in the Police Department. It's a meaningless job."

Many low-priority police calls are now diverted to the new Differential Police Response unit, which is staffed by officers on light, or limited, duty, said Michael Tobin, executive director of the city Fire and Police Commission.

These cops do actual police work by conducting minor investigations and issuing citations as part of the unit.

"If Mr. Orlowski is not too busy running triathlons, we'd be glad to find a place for him in the Milwaukee Police Department," Tobin said, "and that position would make a difference in the community."

But under the current rules, no one can force Orlowski to take such a job.

That's due in large part to a court decision from the mid-'90s.

The suit was filed by a Milwaukee cop, Peggy Pikalek, after she was put on limited work duty because of several on-the-job injuries. She argued that officers seeking disability pay were not forced to work light duty jobs until February 1987, about seven months before her last injury.

The city disagreed, saying the rules never changed.

But in August 1994, then-Milwaukee County Circuit Judge William Haese, now deceased, sided with Pikalek, and a state Appeals Court panel later upheld the decision.

"The police disability system really has us handcuffed," Tobin said.

Pikalek could not be reached for comment, and her former attorney, John Fuchs, did not return calls. The police union offered a general statement saying it does all it can to support active-duty officers under the terms of their collective-bargaining agreement.

The court ruling means there now are two sets of rules for injured Milwaukee officers - one for those hired before February 1987 and those hired after, according to Jerry Allen, head of the Employees' Retirement System, which writes the duty disability checks.

If a cop hired after that date is injured at work, the city can assign him or her to a position requiring less strain, such as responding to open records requests or serving on the Differential Police Response unit, once the officer is considered able to do this work.

The issue is whether the injured officer can fulfill the responsibilities of a job in the department.

But Milwaukee officers hired before 1987 can qualify for duty disability retirement if they are injured to such an extent that they cannot do everything required of them in the job they held when they were hurt.

The issue is whether an injured street cop, for instance, can fulfill the full responsibilities for being a street cop, not just any job in MPD.

Jonathan Levine, an employment lawyer who represents businesses, said he is unaware of any private firm that has such a generous deal for injured workers, whether they were unionized or not.

"That concept would be unheard of," Levine said. "Private-sector employers can't throw their money away. Public-sector employers - at least in the past, when deals like this were negotiated - had a bottomless pit of taxpayers who would foot the bill."

For Orlowski, who was hired in 1981, doctors concluded that his bum shoulder would impede his ability to do his job.

"It would affect your ability to wrestle bad guys on the street," Allen said of the shoulder injury. "You would be potentially at higher risk of injuring yourself again.

"But you might still be perfectly able to run and bicycle and swim."

For Orlowski, those things took some time.

In 2003, four years after he was declared physically disabled, he returned to Hawaii to watch the 25th anniversary of the first Ironman triathlon. He had been one of 12 men to finish the inaugural race in 1978, competing in cut-off jeans and riding a borrowed 10-speed Sears Free Spirit bike.

The trip inspired him to get in shape to participate in the 30th anniversary of the Ironman. The hardest part, he said, was learning to swim again with his surgically repaired shoulder.

In 2008 - after training for five years and dropping 47 pounds - he again finished the world's best-known triathlon course in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. Now he is more than a third of the way to his goal of completing all 24 Ironman triathlon courses around the world by 2013.

To do that, he maintains a fairly rigorous training schedule. In a typical week, he swims up to five miles, bikes as many as 250 miles and runs between 15 and 20 miles.

Orlowski said he knew it would raise some eyebrows, particularly among his former colleagues, when he returned to competition. But he said he didn't ask for the shoulder injuries.

"There's always guys who are going to be envious," he said. "What am I supposed to do? I even said that to the doctor. Am I supposed to lay down and die?"

To Murphy, the alderman and Pension Board member, Orlowski's story stands in stark contrast to that of two current MPD officers, Graham Kunisch and Bryan Norberg. Both have returned to work part-time work on light duty at MPD just a year after both suffered life-threatening injuries in a south side shooting.

Unfortunately, Murphy said, there isn't a lot the city can do about veteran police officers who earn tax-free disability checks with the help of some medical exams and an old court order.